Three ancient practices, explained
After decades of exploration and experimentation I chose three ancient practices rooted in tradition and proven over the test of time to dedicate my life to sharing. Sometimes overlooked for their simplicity, they are each highly effective tools for releasing stress and finding one’s inner peace or still point. They require little effort, can be done by anyone, anywhere. They are: deep relaxation to the sound of meditation gongs, walking meditation on labyrinths and Kundalini yoga.
New to all three? Start with a gong relaxation evening. You lie down, covered and warm, and do nothing at all. Where to start ↓
Gong relaxation
To experience a gong relaxation requires lying down on a mat, nestled in an oversized blanket with your eyes covered ready to receive the sounds of the gongs. Nothing more, nothing less. You set an intention – a word or phrase to focus on should your mind wander. There are no prerequisites, nothing to learn or do, the sound does the work.
What happens in a gong bath
The sound starts so quietly you cannot tell where it is coming from. Stroke by stroke it builds, until the room fills with waves of sound with no obvious source and no rhythm. The dense wall of harmonics and overtones is unpredictable. Your mind stops trying to anticipate the next note and you slip into a relaxed state of being.
Your mind quietens and you lose track of time. Some fall into a deep sleep, some see colour, some feel a wave of emotion arrive without a reason attached to it. Whatever you see, feel, hear, experience is normal and unique to you and that particular time and place. You leave feeling calm, clear headed, and relaxed.
The instrument
Gongs date back to the Bronze Age, around 3500 BC, and were used across Asia for meditation, ceremony and communication long before European orchestras adopted them in 1790. A gong is an idiophone: the whole instrument vibrates, so a single strike releases a fundamental note and a great many overtones at once. To the listener it can sound like many instruments playing together.
Red Doors is home to Asia’s largest collection of meditation gongs. Most are made by Paiste in Germany, each one hand-forged and tuned: symphonic gongs, whose rich overtones balance around a fundamental note, and planet gongs, tuned to frequencies Hans Cousto calculated from the orbits of the planets. Our collection also contains fine examples of titanium gongs made by Martin Blase as well as copper gongs and representative gongs from Asia.
Why it works
Sound is a physical event before it is a musical one. A struck gong pushes and pulls the air around it into travelling waves of pressure: compression and rarefaction. These low frequency waves extend from the gong travelling at 343 m/sec. They bounce off hard surfaces creating a complex plasmon of vibrating molecules in which you are immersed. Sound waves travel 4.5× faster through water (as well as all our body tissues).
Simply being in the presence of a gong well played moves you – mechanically and measurably. That is physics.
What is consistently observed under deep, sustained, unpredictable sound is a shift in the nervous system. Breathing slows, alertness drops, and attention loosens towards the drowsy, dreamlike edge of sleep, which practitioners call the theta state. People describe it as ‘being awake in a dream’.
Research has shown that evoking theta has significant effects on our wellbeing. We can observe drops in blood pressure, breathing rate, heart rate, skin conductivity, and cortisol while if done on a regular basis sleep improves, your tolerance for stress improves and your overall wellbeing improves.
Martha conducted a study for Svaram Sound Institute in 2022 consisting of 11 senior executives attending one 20-minute gong per week over a period of 12 weeks. The results indicated 100% improvement in sleep, 83% decrease in perceived stress and 72% improvement in overall wellbeing. Currently she is leading an online version of the program through The Shift Network to evaluate the effectiveness of online delivery of gongs using the same validated tools.
Music has touched the human soul across all boundaries of time, space, and genre… Perhaps, in its vibratory nature, music opens us to a greater appreciation of our essential connectedness to the cosmos, our oneness with all that is.Balfour M. Mount
Oftentimes clients are unable to answer, ‘how do you feel?’ immediately after a gong relaxation. Martha recently discovered current research into the state of ‘Awe’. An experience where you are at a loss for words to describe how you feel. Repeated exposure to this ineffable state of profound inner peace has been proven highly therapeutic in the lab. Benefits include improved vagal tone, longevity and cardiovascular health, decreases in inflammation, stress, anxiety, depression and PTSD with an overall feeling of connectedness and meaning.
Sound is the basic vibration of the universe…Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki
Life as manifested is vibration. Vibration is motion; therefore, all life is in motion.Dorinne Davis
Sound originated with the creation of the universe. Every molecule known to man vibrates at a quantum level. When there is tension or blockages, vibration changes.
Every illness is a musical problem, the healing, a musical solution.Novalis
Long before anyone had the vocabulary, cultures across the world built instruments such as gongs, bowls, drums and vocals for exactly this – to shift energy and move from one state into another. Red Doors exists to make that available in Hong Kong, properly and consciously, with high-quality instruments, in a room built for it.
Questions
When might a gong bath help?
The short answer – anytime. Gongs relax and renew on all levels and will support optimum wellbeing. You may also consider them when you feel stuck, when old patterns keep repeating, when you feel scattered or disconnected, or when you simply need rest.
How is it different from listening to music?
Music arranges sound into melody, rhythm and harmony for you to follow. A gong bath works with sustained vibration instead: no tune, no beat to anticipate, felt throughout the body as well as heard. We say your entire body becomes an ‘ear’.
How does it connect to meditation?
Meditation is the practice of becoming a quiet observer of your own mind. To do so requires sitting upright. Many people today find seated meditation difficult. Their busy mind is incapable of shutting off for even a minute. If you meditate regularly and then stay seated during a gong bath you will go deeper more quickly. However, most people prefer to lie down where the gong does the work for you: with nothing to hold on to, the mind settles on its own.
How many sessions will I need?
Some people feel a shift during their first session; for others it settles over the following days. Like any practice, the effect builds when you come regularly. We have seen significant improvements in sleep for instance within 6 short weeks of one session per week.
What should I bring?
Just yourself. Mats, blankets, essential oils and eye covers are provided. Wear something loose and warm, changing facilities are available. Arrive 15 minutes early, and leave your shoes outside the door.
Is it a medical treatment?
No. Sound relaxation is a complementary wellness practice and is not a substitute for medical advice or treatment. If you have a medical condition, talk to your doctor first and let us know when you book.
Walking meditation on the labyrinth
A single circuitous path leading into the centre and back out again. There is nothing to think about except the next step. For anyone who finds sitting still hard, it is a form of meditation you do on your feet.
A labyrinth is not a maze
A maze is designed to be solved, it is full of choices and dead ends, and it keeps the thinking mind busy. On the other hand a labyrinth is a single circuitous path. Its tight turns and intentionally narrow paths force you to slow down physically as well as mentally.
Mazes challenge. Labyrinths invite.
Labyrinths are thousands of years old and appear in cultures from India to North America to Europe, often at times of great change. The most famous is set into the floor of Chartres Cathedral in France, built in 1201.
The Red Doors labyrinth
The studio floor holds a permanent, 10-circuit labyrinth, 27 feet across. It is modelled on the labyrinth at Bayeux, which dates to the 12th century, and it is open for group walks and facilitated sessions.
Martha Collard is the Asia Representative of The Labyrinth Society and a Veriditas Certified Labyrinth Facilitator and Builder. Her permanent public labyrinths can be walked in the garden of St John’s Cathedral, at the Star Ferry on the Hong Kong side and at SKH Secondary School, Sheung Shui.
Why people walk
To celebrate, as a form of transition, to grieve, to slow down, to look for an answer, or out of simple curiosity. Afterwards, walkers often describe:
- A sense of calm
- Less stress
- Feeling balanced again
- Clearer insight
- New ideas
- A sense of community
Labyrinths beyond the studio
Schools, hospitals, churches, communities and companies all use labyrinths. Martha designs walks for team building, idea generation and managing conflict or change, as well as rituals, celebrations and community events, indoors or out.
Organisations Martha has worked with include:
- New Provident Centre
- Maggie’s Cancer Caring Centre
- CancerLink
- Mandarin Oriental
- HKIS
- South Island School
- Renaissance College
- University of HK Centre on Behavioral Health
- Art Link
- St Stephen’s Fete
- HK Boy Scout Association
- World Scout Jamboree 2015
- St John’s Cathedral
- International Christian School
- HK Hospital Authority
- Project Watchdog
- Asian Consciousness Festival
- Experiential Learning Conference
- Yaowawit School, Phuket
- KGV
- Leadership in Motion Conference
Portable labyrinths
We build custom canvas labyrinths, rent out fabric ones for events, and sell small finger labyrinths you can trace by hand. Ask us.
Breathwalk
Breathwalk pairs specific breathing patterns with the rhythm of your steps and a focused, meditative attention. The exercises are designed to lift energy, steady mood and clear the mind, and they can be done on the labyrinth or anywhere you walk.
The yoga of awareness
Breath, movement, mantra and meditation in one practice, finishing with an extended savasana gong relaxation. It is an accessible practice suited for the householder, welcoming all levels of experience.
What it is
Kundalini yoga brings the mind and body together through conscious breathing, postures, hand positions (mudra), eye focus, body locks, mantra and meditation. Each set of exercises is designed to balance the glandular system, strengthen the nervous system, expand lung capacity and build stamina and flexibility.
It is accessible at every age, level of fitness and body type, and you need no yoga experience to benefit from your first class. The style taught at Red Doors was brought to North America by Yogi Bhajan in 1969 and is now practised around the world.
Having studied many schools and styles of yoga over the years, Martha found Kundalini yoga the fastest and most effective route to balance, strength and wellbeing. She teaches as a KRI Level 2 certified and Yoga Alliance 500-hour teacher.
How it differs from other yoga
- Being present at every moment
- Every movement has its own focus and breath
- The teacher corrects with voice, never touch
- We wear loose cotton and natural fibres, not Lycra
- A long gong relaxation to finish the class
- Mantra and music throughout
What happens in a class
- Tuning in
A short mantra chanted to focus the mind and leave the day outside.
- Meditation
A meditation to settle the breath and set the tone for the class.
- Warm-up and kriya
Limbering exercises, then a kriya: a set of exercises with a theme. Like a recipe, done as written it gives a reliable result.
- Gong relaxation
Fifteen to twenty minutes lying down to the sound of the gong.
- Reflection and close
A closing mantra and moment of reflection before you head home.
Before your first class
- Wait an hour or two after eating, and bring water.
- Wear loose, comfortable clothes, cotton if you have it.
- Tell the teacher about any back or knee injuries. If you have a medical condition, check with your doctor first.
- Listen to your body. It is not a competitive sport: if something hurts, stop.
Kundalini yoga therapy
Yoga therapy applies Kundalini practices to a specific need, looking at it from the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual aspects. Workshops and classes are available on vitality and stress, on living with PTSD. Remember yoga is beneficial alongside your existing medical care, never instead of it. Ask Martha.
Not sure which one is for you?
They all lead to the same place. Pick the way in that suits you best.
Lie down and let the sound carry you. No experience, no effort, nothing to get right.
Find a date → If sitting still is hard Walking Meditation on LabyrinthsMeditation on your feet. The path does the thinking, so your mind can rest.
Find a date → If you want a practice to take home Kundalini YogaBreath, movement and mantra you can keep doing, with a gong relaxation to finish.
Find a date →Fees are in Hong Kong dollars and confirmed on the calendar at booking. Sound relaxation, labyrinth walking and Kundalini yoga are complementary wellness practices and are not a substitute for medical advice or treatment. See our cancellation guidelines.